


Geographic Approach

by Nabielka



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-13
Updated: 2020-09-13
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:00:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26352298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nabielka/pseuds/Nabielka
Summary: Foreign borders cannot keep Prince Rabadash away from his lady. Or, the conquest of Archenland.
Relationships: Susan Pevensie/Rabadash
Comments: 9
Kudos: 19
Collections: Narnia Fic Exchange 2020





	Geographic Approach

**Author's Note:**

  * For [arysthaeniru](https://archiveofourown.org/users/arysthaeniru/gifts).



“O my lady and O the delight of my eyes,” said the Prince with a shallow blow. “Verily the poets have said, abandoned by the gods is the one who has left his heart behind in a foreign land – yet Tash’s favours will fall upon him who meets his enemies with unyielding heart.” 

She neither smiled nor blushed, as she might have in that sennight he had spent at Cair Paravel. The bow was still at her back, she clad in leathers, a knife at her hip. She looked not at all the fine lady he had last seen in his father’s palace, pearls in her hair, but her posture was very fine, the line of her breasts as appealing as it had been in silk. 

King Lune’s head, which he had ordered kept as appealing as could be managed, lay on a cushion of such silk between them. She had looked at it but once and then away, but then her brother’s subjects called her Gentle. 

“An attack unheralded and unprovoked!” cried her attendant, a man unturbanned. Rabadash recalled that he had been among the party at Tashbaan, though he gave not the impression of a man known for his strength. A greater concern was the great cat that lay at her feet, which in Narnia he knew to be a demon and not the ornament known in the northern provinces. He comforted himself that at least it was prostrating. 

“The bolt of Tash falls unseen from above,” said Rabadash. “Archenland, O my lady, is ours.” 

“Archenland,” said Queen Susan firmly, “belongs now by right to Prince Corin, our ward. Be assured that Narnia shall uphold her neighbour’s rights and shall not suffer such attacks upon our borders.” 

Stood the boy among her attending court? Rabadash thought not, though he could not have identified him. Pale, he thought, like the rest of the barbarians, and unlike most of them even pale-haired. Womanly sentiment, he thought, but he considered her stronger than to be thus overpowered. She expected to mould the boy, to extend Narnia’s interests southward, as it had been in days of old – for these little barbarian kingdoms had been as a barnacle upon Calormen since before the days of Ardeeb Tisroc. 

“O Queen, how your woman’s eyes shine for the fall of this land. Bestir your heart to rejoice for the overcoming of this great chasm between us. How well I recall with what emotion you spoke in the halls of Tashbaan of your sorrow at being parted so from your people and your land. Who, having seen the galleys moving around the point can know not how treacherous the seas may be, and how arduous the sailing? Yet a fine equipage may brave the pass even in your Northern winter, and communications with your bold brother, the High King, pass unencumbered and unquestioned all the year around. Within my lands, none shall act against you.” 

“You cannot think that I wanted this!” cried Queen Susan, managing in one movement to indicate the head of the fallen barbarian king, the guards stationed outside, the manner of their meeting.

With the last, Rabadash could certainly sympathise. It befit a noble consort to greet her victorious suitor with words of praise and admiration for his glory. It did not befit her to greet him as though she meant to raise arms against him. A Tarkheena would have known the forms, but the Narnian queen could not be overly blamed for her barbarous surroundings. She would learn. 

In Narnia, he had thought to have found a certain commonality in their minds. She held a deep pride for her country, which was an rowdy land smaller than Calavar province. But as they had ridden through it, he had seen that it was fruitful, more so than could be expected after the barrenness that had spanned four reigns. No doubt it had been brought about by natural causes – Rabadash had not at all believed the mutterings in Tashbaan about the queen and her siblings, and having spent time with her, believed it even less – but Queen Susan was greeted everywhere with what passed for respect in that barbarian country. 

Still he had seen only her beauty. It had not been until she had taken him to the shore beneath the rocks of Cair Paravel, to see that the ships there were so much greater in number than he had supposed, that he had understood that she was showing him what she was too gentle to put in words: that a personal alliance even with so small and cumbersome a land as Narnia could bring him enough might that he might overcome his brothers for the throne. 

Before her court, she could not speak openly; this he knew. 

“Have not the poets said that the heart of a Tarkhaan is lightened as his walls are strengthened? O fair Queen, your lands need not now fear the incessant attacks of these blister beetles. Upon our marriage, the High King your brother may know that the giants he yet fights in the North shall shrink in terror like the slave from his master.”

“Upon our marriage!” exclaimed Queen Susan, colour in her cheeks. “Prince Rabadash, I can hardly express myself more plainly upon the matter.” 

It pleased him that, though not a Tarkheena, she felt her existing rank enough to be conscious of this, even in the face of his triumph. It was not befitting a woman who was to be the consort of the man who was to be Tisroc to abandon the straight back and, like the maiden in the tale of the taking of Castle Tormunt, prostrate herself and press her lips to the victorious sword-hand. 

Verily, the poets had said, the one succoured by a beloved shall conquer, but the one bending to the flames of emotion shall find himself stamped out. 

Rabadash, victorious, had only such plans for his brothers, the unworthy eighteen offspring of his father’s concubines, for the similarly squirming Archenlanders, who had called themselves free. And for Narnia – perhaps in time. He had promised his father to conquer Archenland and withdraw from Narnia, though he had been then in a fit of pique and clouded by emotion, thinking that in truth she had thought to reject him. 

For now, it pleased him to triumph; it pleased him to take her to wife, to have bolstered his position with his father and his claim upon the throne, his claim likewise upon her. The Narnians had delayed and evaded this way and that: they would see now what a suitor their queen had claimed, and what a neighbour they would have, and rain down blessings as decisively as did the great Tash.


End file.
